Summary:
ZIP code 61615 has four schools—three elementary schools and one middle school—serving grades PK–8 and enrolling 1,432 students; overall, their 2025–2026 averages were above state averages, but results varied sharply from school to school, with two schools above and two below the state in each subject.
Wilder-Waite Grade School stands out at the top: it had 85% proficiency in all-grades ELA and 77% in math, leading second-place Ridgeview Elementary School by 16 and 20 percentage points, respectively. Wilder-Waite was also ahead of the state by 28 points in ELA and 38 in math. At the other end, Charter Oak Primary School had the lowest ELA result at 39%, while Mark W Bills Middle School had the lowest math result at 20%. Ridgeview was a stronger middle-position option, with 69% in ELA and 57% in math, both above state averages. Grade-specific results add an important contrast: Bills’ fifth-grade ELA was 67%, above the state’s 55%, but its grades 6–8 ELA results were below state benchmarks.
Recent trends also separate the schools. Wilder-Waite rose 7 points in ELA and 8 in math from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026; Charter Oak fell 16 points in ELA and 12 in math, while Bills improved 14 points in ELA but remained well below the state in math. SchoolDigger ranked Wilder-Waite 88th of 1,737 schools (95th percentile), compared with Ridgeview at the 74th percentile, Charter Oak at the 15th, and Bills at the 14th in its separate middle-school ranking pool. In sy 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 25% at Wilder-Waite and 31% at Ridgeview, versus 67% at Charter Oak and 75% at Bills; these figures describe school populations, not reasons for test results. Charter Oak’s student-teacher ratio was 13.6, lower than Wilder-Waite’s 17.5, illustrating that ratio alone does not track scores. Because the schools serve different grade spans, grade-specific comparisons are fairest where grades overlap.
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